I received a message on Facebook last night, from an individual
who explained that he is a European, and that, although he understands
the desirability of a handgun for self-defense, he wanted to know why
anyone would have a Bushmaster. He didn't know that that's a rude
question, but he will when he's received my answer, which you see
below.

******

The short answer to your impertinent question, "Why would anybody
have a Bushmaster?" is this: "Because I want one, and my reasons,—
on the assumption that I even have any—are none of your bloody
business."

The long answer—which I offer out of simple courtesy, and not
from any obligation on my part—is that some of us Americans can
still remember that we are descended from the first people on the
planet who ever told a King to go play with himself in traffic. Their
idea was that government takes orders from us, and not the other way
around.

Regrettably, it didn't quite work out that way.

Our ancestors intended for us, as is our absolute, unalienable
individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right, to be as well
armed—better armed, if possible—than the hired thugs of that
government, in order to force them to behave themselves, like the
humble, lowly, and abject servants they are egregiously overpaid to
be.

That is the essence of our Revolution, the wellspring of everything
decent and admirable that we became afterward, not just the richest,
most powerful, and progressive civilization in history, but a place of
refuge and respite, where—although it certainly didn't come without
a long struggle—Jews and Muslims and blacks and Asians could be
safe to live, consistent with their beliefs, and women received more
respect and better treatment than in any culture the world has ever
seen.

But sadly, somewhere along the line, a majority of us somehow lost
sight of all that. Mostly, I think, it was on account of being steam-
rollered into one stupid, futile, useless, phony war after another,
cranked by crooked politicians to benefit financial criminals—most
of them European, incidentally—who never understood, or even tried
to understand, the true source of our prosperity, but who saw, and
continue to see, America as nothing more than their personal piggy
bank.

However something like a hundred million of us remain pretty well
armed—for reasons people like you willfully refuse to comprehend.
More of us are becoming so every day, in the face of the vicious
demands of an uncredentialled errand boy and his orcish minions, who
aches to be the King, tries to make up the law as he goes along, has
arrogated himself to the position of judge, jury, and executioner, and
built himself a private army (because the real army, mindful of their
oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, can't be relied on to help
him seize absolute power), supplied it with thousands of guns and
billions of rounds of ammunition, with the idea of making us back into
the serfs—of his new nomenklatura—he imagines we were born to
be.

Even if the man eventually succeeds in his evil ambitions, it will
not be cheap or easy. You may be aware that I am a novelist. I am also
a relatively old man, and basically an historian. Predicated on my
understanding of history, and my experience with human nature, what I
see ahead now (I predicted the collapse of the Soviet Empire, among
other things) is that, one way or another, peaceably or otherwise,
there is about to be what we Americans like to call an "attitude
adjustment".

Make no mistake: my fondest wish is that the almost universal
ownership of weapons like the Bushmaster (that's just a single brand
of sport/utility rifle, by the way, not the name for a whole class of
weapons, and there are many others) will be a sufficient word to the
wise.

That's what the Founding Fathers intended.

My fondest wish is that, without firing a solitary shot, this
murderous usurper will be taken in hand by the older, saner heads in
his own party (if there are any), that he and his criminal gang
will—entirely under due process of law—be arrested, tried, convicted,
and punished (exactly as the Nazis were in Nuremberg in the 1940s) for
attempting this coup d'etat of theirs against the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights, and that Americans can then restart creating the
bright, wonderful future that we had planned for ourselves and our
children.

That's my fondest wish.

But I have never believed that "wishing will make it so."

L. Neil Smith has written over 30 books and hundreds of columns and
articles. He is the Publisher and Senior Columnist to L. Neil Smith's
The Libertarian Enterprise, now in its 17th year online, and is
associated with Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. His
most recent works, available at Amazon.com and B&N.com, in both
paper and e-book formats, are Ceres, Sweeter Than Wine, and
Down With Power